The Kerr Construction Company (3 page)

“Yeah, I like those times and his music. But I was nervous, too. And shy.”

“Shy? You don’t seem the type. What’s there to be shy about?”

“You.” I sighed. “I was shy, and talking gibberish helped. I want to get to know you now. I loved being with you. So, I’ll take your invitation. Okay?”

“My mother wants to meet you,” she said. “We had a long talk about you this morning. Someone got my mind off the divorce I just went through. She wants to meet him. And see if he’s all she’s hearing.”

“What’s she been hearing?” I asked quizzically.

“What I told her.”

I kept waiting for what that was.

“You just wait on me here until I’m off work,” she said. “You’ll get the gist when we get home. Have a beer or two on me while you wait. Read your book. Keep yourself occupied for a couple more hours.”

Her mother’s house was a two-bedroom wood-frame yellow cottage with a screened-off front porch. A middle-aged dark-skinned woman, slightly overweight, let us in. She was the same height as Carmen, I guessed five feet four, which was tall for a Mexican-American woman. She still had good looks, with occasional streaks of gray in her hair.

“Mother’s been a widow since I was in high school,” Carmen explained. “My dad was killed in a car accident. I have a younger sister, but she’s in Germany. She married a soldier from Albuquerque.”

“Have a seat on the couch,” Carmen’s mother said. “I prepared you some enchiladas after my daughter called me on the phone tonight. I’ll bring them in after I microwave them. They got cold. Eat all you want.”

“You know,” I commented to Carmen, “the Mexican-Americans back home all have accents and they seem just as Mexican as they are American. You just seem an American with brown skin to me. It’s almost confusing.”

“Is that okay with you?” she asked. “Would you rather me talk differently?”

“No, I love it. Even the Mexican-Americans in college had accents. Not strong, but something. You don’t have any accent at all.”

“I don’t know, I’m just me. Some of us here talk with an accent. Those just here or a generation removed. Most of my friends are just as American as can be. I have a lot of Anglo friends. I don’t even know Spanish.”

Carmen got up to leave but looked back toward me at the entrance to a bedroom. “I’m going to take a quick shower,” she said. “I won’t be long. I get all sweaty, and there’s a tobacco stench on my clothes, too. So many smoke, you know.”

She hadn’t returned when, several minutes later, her mother came out with two plates of enchiladas. One, I assumed, was for Carmen.

“Go ahead and start without her,” Carmen’s mother said. “I know you must be starving. My daughter tells me you’re from Texas and that you work as a laborer even though you have a college degree.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s strange. So many here don’t have any college, much less a degree. If I had education, I would be so far away.”

“I like it here,” I replied.

“It’s okay,” she admitted. “It’s home. The people are nice, and there are some exotic landscapes around. But I would think you could say the same thing about Texas. I don’t understand what brings you here.”

“I wanted something I’ve never seen before.”

“Go to Alaska. Or Hawaii. I would love to go to Hawaii.”

“So would I,” I said, smiling. “I might do that someday.”

“You and Carmen just met yesterday?”

“Yes, ma’am. Last night was the first time we went out together.”

“She really likes you. You seem nice, and you’re tall and muscular, have an education. What do you see in my daughter? Am I being too forward?”

“I don’t know yet the attraction about her,” I answered. “It’s just there. She’s got a spark, she’s pretty, she seems really bright.”

“Carmen seems bright to you? She was a terrible student. That’s why she’s a waitress. I told her to study and go to college and make something of herself. But here she is a waitress and just got through a divorce. I don’t know if that’s very smart.”

“She seems very smart to me. It’s in her. Some people just don’t like books. Or some don’t like the structure and discipline of a classroom. She’s smart. I see it.”

Her mother smiled.

“Who’s smart?” Carmen asked, as she reentered the room. I nibbled intensely at my lower lip as a smile eased through. She had her hair wrapped in a bright white towel and was wearing a white bathrobe made of the same coarse material. I loved the contrast of her dark brown skin against the whiteness of her robe and the thick blackness of the strands of hair escaping at the edge of the towel wrapping her head like a crown. What had taken me so long to grasp the cosmetic allure of dark skin, I wondered. She was the sexiest woman I’d ever seen. As much as I now felt liberated, I cursed the trap of a past that had kept me from knowing all of this sooner.

“My goodness, Daughter,” Carmen’s mother said. “Girlie, you can’t come into a room with a man you just met, dressed like that. I have rules in this house.”

“I know, Mother, but I didn’t feel like getting dressed again. I have a slip on under this. Can’t I relax a bit, please?”

“It’s against my better judgment,” her mother said before turning back to me. “You understand why I have rules, don’t you? What’s your name? Dalhart, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am. I absolutely understand.”

“We can’t have mischief,” she explained further. “This is my home. It has sanctity.”

“I understand that,” I said.

“Your food’s getting cold, Dalhart,” her mom said, relaxing again. “Come, Daughter, he waited for you. He’s a true gentleman. Both of you eat now, or I’ll have to warm it up again. It spoils the texture after a while.”

Carmen’s mother left us to ourselves as we sat on the couch next to each other, far enough away to be polite but close enough for me to feel her energy. And body heat. Occasionally, our elbows bumped as we cut the food with our forks while eating awkwardly from the plates on our laps. They had a dining table in the kitchen. I didn’t know why we were eating on the couch, but was glad. It was cozy this way, and informal. When I thought perhaps this coziness was the reason why we were here instead of the dining room, it made me feel all the more relaxed.

Shortly after we finished eating, her mom reentered the living room. “I’m going to bed, Carms. I have to get up early to get to work. It was nice to have met you, Dalhart, and I’m happy we have our understanding. Our mutual trust, I’m saying.”

“Mother,” Carmen sighed. “Dalhart doesn’t have a place to shower and then sleeps in his van. Can he shower here and then sleep on our couch? Please? He is a guest here in Gallup. Please let’s help him.”

“Oh, Carmen, no,” I said. “I’m fine. I couldn’t even consider imposing. I’ve already showered anyway.”

She whispered pointedly, as if telling me to mind my own business, “I’m talking about from now on.”

“People will gossip, Carms,” her mother replied. “I know that sounds like a lame reason to you, but it matters. This is a small town, and you just arrived back and with a fresh divorce.”

“They can’t live our lives for us, Mother. He needs a place. If you are worried about us, I promise to behave. I’m a grown woman, but I will behave for you in your house that you are letting me stay in. But please be fair.”

“Carmen, I’m fine,” I said, feeling awkward. “I’ve been doing this for two weeks now. I have a place to shower now, and I sleep well in my panel truck.”

“You understand, don’t you, Dalhart?” Carmen’s mother looked sheepishly at me. “My daughter just back from a divorce and here comes another Anglo staying in our house before the ink is dry on the papers.”

“I fully understand,” I said to her. I looked at Carmen. “Carmen, it’s important to me. I want to get to know you before I impose on you.”

Carmen gave a quick, deliberate, grudging nod with her head and stared straight ahead, holding her thoughts.

“Good night, ma’am,” I said to her mother. “I won’t stay much longer. We’re just getting to know one another and want to talk a bit more.”

“I understand, Dalhart,” her mother answered. “I’m very glad to get to know you, and you’ve brought some excitement back into my daughter’s life. Good night, the two of you. I’m glad I can trust you and depend on you.”

“Good night, Mother,” Carmen said. “I do understand. Just disappointed.”

She then turned to me, and it seemed as if her black eyes glowed. “You are so sweet to her,” Carmen said, smiling. “You show respect. It’s so old-fashioned, but it’s nice. I like it. I can’t believe I’m saying that.”

“You can’t believe you’re saying you like old-fashioned?”

“I suppose,” she explained. “That must sound rather loose to you. Maybe I’m a bit loose. I had fun growing up. I’m not saying I was promiscuous, but I had some fun. But here I am now. My marriage was based on fun, and it wasn’t so much fun after all. Old-fashioned seems rather refreshing for a change.”

“I’m not going away,” I said. “I kind of like going slowly.”

“Yeah, well.” She sighed. “All that said, I couldn’t believe we didn’t even kiss last night. I kept waiting for this Texas guy to seduce me. You were the perfect gentleman. Like some knight in shining armor. I hated you for it.” She laughed.

“I’m not as honorable as you might think. My hormones were raging. Still are. I felt nervous and vulnerable more than honorable. But if I had felt a hot juicy kiss on my lips last night, I might have not gone home. So I talked about Woody Guthrie instead.”

“I’m getting hot just hearing that, Dalhart. One of the worst things about a divorce is that suddenly there’s no man in your life anymore. No affection, no rapport.” Her smile broadened. “Or even fun. Or raging hormones. Are we going to kiss tonight? Can you handle it?” She turned away giggling girlishly. “Can I?”

“I want to go slowly,” I repeated. “Even without your mother’s words, but especially now because of her. But, yeah, I’d love a kiss.”

Her expression turned serious, but soft. She tilted her head slightly and leaned toward me, teasing my lips with hers at first and then planting them fully, while at the same time stroking my cheek with her fingertips. I placed my hand behind her neck and pulled her more firmly into me. I somehow had forgotten the electric-like charge of such an embrace. How did I live without it so long?

We released the kiss and leaned back into the couch holding hands.

“I got the hots for you, Dalhart,” she said rubbing her thumb softly on the back of my hand. “Tell me the same thing. I want to hear you say it to me.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding my head.

“Yeah, what? I want to hear you tell me you got the hots for me. Tell me in those words. Those same exact words.”

I looked at her awkwardly. “I feel all that,” I said. “Just let me feel it.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked. “All this honor between us we’re suddenly stuck with.”

“It’ll work out, Carmen. There’s a lot you don’t know about me. I need to go slowly. It’ll work out.”

I managed to meditate when I got back to the van, but it was clouded, and intruded upon by thoughts of her. Her. That’s what I thought about all night long. That and us.

****

“How do you know Spanish?” Jose asked as we dug a trench next to a water pump.

“I don’t know very much,” I replied.

“You understand sometimes when I talk to the others,” he commented.

“I learned a little from growing up on the border. We had a lot of first-generation from Mexico on our farm, and a lot of illegals. I should know more. My daddy knows Spanish fluently.”

“Why does a college man come here?” he asked.

“I used to work in computers in Houston, when I got out of the Marines. Before I went back to college to finish my degree. It was the worst time of my life.”

“Worse than this?” he asked me, cracking a smile. A smile from a coworker. That was a breakthrough.

“This does suck,” I said, “but when it came time to choose a career, I couldn’t make up my mind what to do. The thought even scared me. I’m looking for my place.”

“It’s not here.” He laughed.

“I like it here okay. For now.”

“I’m here because there’s no other place for me,” Jose explained. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. No matter what you say, college boy, I think you’re crazy.”

“You’ve got it made here, Jose. Doug likes you. He’s teaching you to use heavy equipment. You’ll make bucks.”

“That’s why I’m here, nothing else. I’m illegal too, just like your hands on your
patron
daddy’s farm. There’s nothing for me back home. As bad as this is, it’s something. And then I see you, and you have everything, and you’re here too.
Mi no sabe, hombre.
”

“Except for your accent, you speak perfect English,” I noted. “How long you been here?”

“Three years,” he answered. “President Carter is talking about amnesty for illegal aliens that have been here for so long. I thought about applying, but then I’m afraid the Border Patrol will pick me up.”

“I figured you were illegal,” I said.

“Almost everybody except the Navajos,” he explained. “And now here comes a white college guy from Texas.
Mi no sabe
at all.”

“How did you learn English like that in three years? Man, you make me ashamed. I’m horrible at Spanish.”

“Survival,” Jose replied.

“The other illegals don’t know English,” I said. “Maybe a couple do.”

“They don’t care. They make a few bucks and go back home. There’s no going back for me. I have my wife, illegal wife, and my baby boy, legal baby boy.”

“Where’s back for you?” I asked.

“Durango. I worked for a
patron
like my papa does even now. That is no life. I tried boxing. I won a few, but unless you’re a champion you get your brains beat out for nothing. I fought bulls for a couple of years.”